5. How People Focus Attention

Attention is selective.

People will pay attention to only one thing and ignore everything else as long as you give them specific instructions to do so, and the task doesn’t take too long.

People filter information.

Don’t expect that people will necessarily pay attention to information you provide.

What is obvious to you as the designer may not be obvious to the people using what you have designed.

If you think people might be filtering information, use colour, size, animation, video, and sound to draw attention to what’s important.If it’s critical that people pay attention to certain information, make that information stand out 10 times more than you think is necessary.

Sustained attention lasts about ten minutes.

Assume that you have at most 7 to 10 minutes of a person’s attention (e.g. keep online demos or tutorials under 7 minutes in length).

If you must hold attention longer than 7 to 10 minutes, introduce novel information or a break.

People can’t actually multi-task.

Young people do not multi-task better than older people.

Avoid forcing people to multi-task. If people must multi-task, pay particular attention to theusability of the form.

If you require people to multi-task, expect them to make lots of errors and build in ways for them to fix errors afterwards.

Driving while having a cell phone conversation is like driving under the influence of alcohol.